The worry that this wasn’t the strongest Anomaly in this rift was dispelled when I felt the Anomaly’s life energy flow into me, replenishing the energy I had expanded in manipulating the reality around it.

That should add another entry into my jade book.

I turned back to look at my Guardians, all of them doing their best to hold off the few remaining Anomalies.

Heck, even Maylene was participating in the fight as I watched her flit around the hill to distract the Anomalies for the others to land decisive blows. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

With her speed, the larger sized Anomalies couldn’t even follow her movements and if they decided to ignore her, Maylene would rush in and kick at them to get their attention again.

I wonder how effective she would be if she also had a weapon that could complement her combat style?

I moved to join them, deciding to leave finding out about the new entry later and focus on dealing with the remaining opponents instead.

I descended into the middle of the group of Anomalies from above, instantly cutting through several of them with my blade and letting their corpses fall over the edges of the hill.

That caught the attention of the remaining Anomalies and they turned to see me standing amongst the corpses of their brethren.

They must be wondering why I was there since I should have been occupied dealing with the Commander Class Anomaly until they turned to see its corpse laying at the bottom of the hill.

That enraged them as they let out a roar and completely ignored my Guardians in favour of rushing towards me in rage.

Unfortunately for them, I had planned for that to happen as I waved my hand over the ground and manipulated the earth behind and in front of me to shoot upwards and form into spikes.

The demon Anomalies at the front ended up getting themselves skewered by the spikes and it didn’t help that the ones behind them continued to push forward, shoving the next few Anomalies to impale on the spikes as well.

My Guardians also took the opportunity to attack the ones that had turned their backs on them from behind, easily cutting them down and leaving me to deal with the last group that was behind me.

Compared to the boss Anomaly I had just taken out, these things were easier to take down as I took them out one by one, slicing through their necks and torsos with my sword.

Soon enough, the entire hill was cleared of Anomalies and I stood on a mound of Anomaly corpses, taking a moment to check that there was no enemies left before sheathing my blade.

"Everyone alright?" I asked.

Olivia nodded, "A few injuries but nothing serious, my Lord."

I gave all of them a quick inspection and sure enough, aside from a few bruises and cuts, all of them seemed fine otherwise.

That’s good because our work here isn’t done yet.

I turned to look back at the path our expedition took to get here, seeing explosions continue to pepper the plains in the distance.

Even from here, I could see the demon Anomalies chasing after what should be the expedition group that was currently retreating back towards the portal.

I turned back towards my Guardians, "Do we need to take a break?"

While the expedition force might still be in danger, I wasn’t going to just rush to another fight if my Guardians were not up for it.

After all... They can’t just replenish their energy like I can.

All of them looked in the direction of the explosions before turning to nod at me.

"We are ready, my Lord. Give us the order and we will head out."

Well, since they are sure...

I went over to the corpse of the Commander Anomaly and sliced off its head before stuffing it under my arm to carry it with me.

A few of my Guardians raised an eyebrow at me but chose to stay silent.

I prepared to open another teleportation door to bring us close to the expedition force.

Unfortunately, they were too far for me to accurately pinpoint a good location to teleport to and I can’t tell where along the path they were to materialise the teleportation door to meet them.

Thus, I chose to teleport us to the location of the portal instead, where I could also tell the artillery group to cease fire or we might get blown up while trying to help them.

I focused my attention on the space in front of me, connecting it with the space that I remember seeing that was in front of the portal.

It took me a moment before the door appeared and I nodded at everyone to follow me through the door.

As soon as I stepped through, I found myself standing in the middle of a camp and the sound of artillery guns being fired filled the air.

A few soldiers and Vanguards quickly rushed over towards me with their weapons drawn, only to lower them quickly when they saw me step through the door.

"M... Mortal God?!" One of them cried out.

I had no time to waste here so I waved at them, "Tell whoever is in charge to stop shooting the guns after another salvo! We’re going to be engaging the Anomalies directly after this!"

The person I called out to was surprised by my instruction but I didn’t wait around to see if they understood.

Instead, I started running alongside my Guardians to head towards the edge of the camp.

Reaching there, we could see the explosions still happening in the distance as the expedition force continued their path of retreat while being surrounded by Anomalies.

Now there’s a problem...

It looks like they were still too far away for us to reach them by running there but I also still can’t get a clear sight of where they are to set up another teleportation door to send us there.

While I was wracking my head thinking about what to do, my gaze shifted to Maylene and a figurative lightbulb lit up in my head.

I turned towards an empty patch of ground before smashing my hands into the earth and pulling out a large chunk of it.

"Everyone except Maylene, hop in!" I ordered.

My Guardians took one look at the chunk of earth I was lifting up and realised what my plan was.

All of them jumped on top of it and I made use of Kris’s ability to change the gravity of both myself and the patch of earth to lessen the weight.

I then stretched out my other hand to the bunny girl and she grabbed onto it tightly, giving me a nod to show that she was ready.

"Everyone hold on!!"

There was a pause before Maylene sped off and all of us were dragged along behind her, my Guardians holding on to the edge of the rock I was carrying for dear life.

The surroundings blurred past and I could see the explosions getting closer and closer until the plains in front of us gave way to a mass of Anomalies that was currently marching towards the expedition group.

Looks like the Anomalies had intentionally split themselves into two groups to surround the expedition from the front and back, cutting off their path back to the camp.

The expedition group was now stuck in an encirclement and fighting with their backs against each other’s to fend off the Anomalies bearing down on them.

They had already suffered casualties and several of the armoured vehicles were also destroyed and left as smouldering husks on the battlefield.

Had we been slower in defeating the Anomalies around the Gatekeeper... This group might have been completely wiped out.

Maylene slowed down, careful to return to a normal speed so that we don’t get thrown off because of the momentum of her running.

As soon as she got close enough for us, I lowered the piece of earth I was carrying and allowed everyone to get off, leaving them to charge ahead towards the back of the Anomalies to open a path for them to escape.

As for me...

I flew up into the air, hefting the giant slab of earth above me and took aim at the group of Anomalies on the other side of the expedition group.

The demons looked up and seemed to gape at me for a moment before I changed the direction of my gravity to shoot myself towards the Anomalies, pushing the slab of earth towards them like a battering ram.

I crashed through them and bowled over a good number of the demons, lifting the pressure from the Vanguards that were trying to hold the demons back in the encirclement.

Tossing the slab of earth to crash into another group of Anomalies, I flew back up into the air to make sure all of them could see me before I took out the head of their commander from under my arm, holding it out in front of me to display it.

It had the intended effect as all the Anomalies roared out in rage and turned their attention to me instead, exposing their backs to the expedition force.

That’s right, come here and avenge your boss.

If you can even try, that is.